Hi,
On 09/30/2015 01:44 AM, Jochen Wiedmann wrote:
Hi, Norman,
On Tue, Sep 29, 2015 at 10:06 PM, <n...@dad.org> wrote:
My colleague Jeff Rothenberg and I, retirees, have developed an alternative to
using regular expressions for searching for (and optionally replacing)
patterns in text.
Something that is more fluid and can communicate the semantics of the operation
as it is written would be nice.
I admit that I am becoming somewhat cautious by reading about "an
alternative"
Agree - most regular expression engines seem to be battled tested fairly well.
I think the complex part of regular expressions is building it and interpreting
it, so if something helps with that, thumbs up!
to one of the best researched and understood parts of the
theory of computer science, namely regular expressions.
We know exactly, how powerful regexes are. And we also know exactly,
what they can't do.
Regular expressions remind me of punch cards. If you know what you are doing,
and have invested the time to prove that what the expression is doing is what
it's supposed to be doing, it's great. However reading, rationalizing, and
testing:
|^(?:(?:(?:0?[13578]|1[02])(\/|-|\.)31)\1|(?:(?:0?[13-9]|1[0-2])(\/|-|\.)(?:29|30)\2))(?:(?:1[6-9]|[2-9]\d)?\d{2})$|^(?:0?2(\/|-|\.)29\3(?:(?:(?:1[6-9]|[2-9]\d)?(?:0[48]|[2468][048]|[13579][26])|(?:(?:16|[2468][048]|[3579][26])00))))$|^(?:(?:0?[1-9])|(?:1[0-2]))(\/|-|\.)(?:0?[1-9]|1\d|2[0-8])\4(?:(?:1[6-9]|[2-9]\d)?\d{2})$
Can be tricky. So if there's a more fluid way to build and communicate what
the above sequence is doing, that would be awesome. |
Regarding your work, we don't even know how it would look like.
Perhaps if some simple examples were posted on the mailing list the developers
here could get a better feel for it.
Because, frankly, docs are quite sparse. And, what I found
(SimpleExamples.java) looks to me more like a different API to
creating regexes, rather than an alternative. And, why bother about
that? I never felt it to be painful to specify a regex in text.
Honestly I feel the pain here. I have been close to slipping into a coma
several times while analysing a regular expression. We all know programmers
make mistakes ( Not me :) ), even in simple situations occasionally, so given
how complex some regexs can get...
Cheers,
- Ole
Did so
as a Perl programmer, as an Apache programmer (initially with Oro, and
the like) and nowadays as a Java programmer.
Sorry, but unless you come up with compelling reasons, I am -0 to -1.
Jochen
